Dah Dit Morse Code Trainer Smartphone App

Check Out The Blog Post Here.

LINUX In The Ham Shack!

Hey Gang! Do any of you listen to Podcasts? What about Podcasts related to Ham Radio and LINUX? Speaking of Podcasts, LINUX in the Ham Shack is a site on exactly that topic.

When you have a chance, check out the LINUX in the Ham Shack Web site. Russ K5TUX (and Richard KB5JBV now on hiatus) host an awesome site and their shows (Podcasts) cover many subjects, and yes, believe it or not, once in a while they even talk about LINUX and how it’s related to Ham Radio! Only kidding of course.

Episode #102 focused on QSSTV. Go check it out!

The eHamStore – Transceivers – Scanners – Vintage

Some people complain about eBay for various reasons. But one of eBay’s assets is that it offers buyer protection. In addition, there are some Ham Radio parts which are hard to find through the normal channels.

The eHamStore covers the usual Ham Radio and Scanner gear but also includes a vintage section as well as pages for items like tubes. Why not take a spin over to The eHamStore and browse around, check out prices or maybe find that rare piece of gear you are after. Hey, you never know.

Best of all, no signups are ever required. Why not visit The eHamStore  today!

The ‘Snake’ Antenna

Check this link out. It’s an article by GM4ULS: The ‘Snake’ Antenna.

Fat Cat: An Expose on the Feline Obesity Epidemic in America

Fat Cat: An Expose on the Feline Obesity Epidemic in America.

I wished I had this in the '70s and '80s

Reblogged from Ham Radio Blog PD0AC:

Great stuff here at CircuitLab. Much better than the (mostly) empirical research I relied on back then.

MMMM Tasty - Gotta try this once I get past the experiments with the Raspberry Pi.

Crackling Noises

Reblogged from Ham Radio Blog PD0AC:

• 

It's a common problem: failing ceramic filters, thanks to a design flaw in many transceivers. The FT-857/897 are (in)famous for that, and so are a number of Kenwood models. Recently I repaired and modified four transceivers in short succession. That's a lot, probably a matter of Murphey's Law.

The last one on the bench was a Kenwood TS-2000, owned by my neighbor ham Jan PE1LJS.

Read more… 192 more words

Disturbing UV-5R rumors

Reblogged from Ham Radio Blog PD0AC:

We did quite a few measurements on earlier models (BFB231, BFB239) of the Baofeng UV-5R. These radios did a fine job. According to the measurements of other operators, more recent models appear to be less perfect. Unfortunately I don't own one of these newer versions, but I'll try to borrow one. Did anyone else measure one recently and care to comment on this?

Read more… 6 more words

Review of the Raspberry Pi Model B and Enhanced Kit

                                                                                                                                                                                       

A Ham friend, Joe W2OFD has been looking over the articles and videos about the details of the Raspberry Pi Model B Rev 2 board. The Model B board includes 512 Mb Ram, 2 USB ports, SD Card Slot, Ethernet port, HDMI port, Micro USB power adapter port, analog video and an audio port.

See the Full Story Here: http://wp.me/p1rtTO-hv

Ham Radio Kit Building Is On The Rise Again!

Over at the eHamStore, statistics are showing that there is a lot of traffic steadily hitting the kit building pages. Among Ham Radio operators, kit building is definitely on the rise again! As anyone who has built a kit knows, Ham Radio kit building brings a sense of accomplishment and personal satisfaction.

Imagine purchasing a kit, cobbling the parts together and sending out a CQ! When you hear another station coming back to you, it has to be a thrill. QRP or low power (5 watts or less) is a rather amazing and sometimes challenging way to work local and DX stations. But hey, we all live for the challenge, don’t we?

After building my first QRP kit (NORCAL 40) somewhere around 1985, I was hooked. One day, I brought that first kit over to a friend’s house and connected it to his Cushcraft A4S with the 40 meter add-on kit. We were both laughing hard each time I got a 599+ signal report from a stateside station. There’s nothing like a beam antenna to build up some ERP.

QRP continues to fun and challenging today. My latest Ham Radio kit is the Elecraft KX3. Now this kit requires no soldering; it’s designed as a modular kit which takes about 2.5 hours to put together. The end result is a truly amazing piece of Ham Radio gear. If you are not familiar with the KX3, take a spin over to the Elecraft site (see below). I am sure you will be rather surprised at its huge list of features.

There are a number of great sites to visit to find Ham Radio Kits. Here are a few to get your electrons flowing!

The eHamStore Kits A Variety Of Kits To Review

CanaKit  Canada – High quality electronic kits & modules

Carl’s Electronics  electronic kits, robotic kits, test equipment & more

Communication Concepts  HF/VHF/UHF amps, LP filters, broadband RF transformers

Crystal Radio Kits and Parts

Elecraft  Innovative Electronic  Kits

EMTECH  QRP kits and more

Etherkit  Devoted to open source hardware

Fox Delta Amateur Radio Projects & Kits  Excellent website by Dinesh, VU2FD

Hendricks QRP Kits

NorCal 40A  by Wilderness Radio

Oak Hills Research

Ramsey Kits – Headquarters

Small Wonder Kits (NN1G)

Ten-Tec  Worldwide reputation for excellent radios and kits

The ‘Rock-Mite’  Simple CW transceiver for 40 or 20 meters

YouKits Technology  Quality, well designed kits … check them out!

Which kits have you built? Do you work QRP? Why not tell us about your experiences!